“If you want an enjoyable, inspiring and safe national park visit, make your plans for this coming summer. If these cuts occur, in the following years you could be hard-pressed to find a ranger to help you, or your favorite park may be closed when you want to visit," said Craig Obey, the group's vice president for government affairs.

Mr. Obey's statement was released shortly after the supercommittee's co-chairs announced they the committee was at a stalemate.

“As the congressional supercommittee announced its failure to reach a budget deal today, we are extremely concerned with the impacts that failure could have on our national parks," said Mr. Obey. "According to Congress’ budget agreement made in August ... failure of the 12-member congressional panel sets in motion a process of sequestration, which will begin in January 2013. As the law currently stands, this process will lead to mandatory cuts to discretionary spending across-the-board which means national parks could see 9 percent cuts that will also harm local businesses, jobs, and the protection of our national heritage."

While National Park Service officials have not said how a 9 percent cut would be absorbed by the agency, NPCA said such a reduction would harm parks, surrounding communities, and businesses that rely on tourism tied to the parks.

"A study commissioned by NPCA found that every federal dollar invested in national parks generates at least four dollars of economic value to the public," said Mr. Obey. "National parks support $13.3 billion of local private-sector economic activity and 267,000 private-sector jobs. Cuts to park operations, construction and land acquisition could mean direct job losses that will impair the places that American families rely on as affordable vacation destinations each year.

"A 9 percent cut, if you're looking at it from the standpoint of a park superintendent, their greatest flexibility is hiring more or less seasonals. In the case of Acadia, at least, and probably in many other parks, a 9 percent cut would essentially wipe out seasonals," said Denis Galvin, a former deputy director of the Park Service, during a conference call with reporters to discuss the report. "Which means at the height of the visitor season you have nobody to staff visitor centers, give interpretive talks, provide law enforcement services, etc. It’s just very clear that anything like a 9 percent cut would be devastating to the parks and result in park closeures I think shortly after that.”

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 21, 2011 - 8:57pm.

Might be a good time for those in the Senior Executive Service to send some of their Congressional level incomes on down the line to those boots on the ground that keep the parks running. Come on Unions, it's time. It's a different world for a reason.